Teaching Portfolio

A good way to keep reflective material together in an organized fashion as well as keeping artifacts of teaching development is with a teaching portfolio. Teaching portfolios or dossiers can range from showpieces (useful for an interview and hiring purposes) to working/living documents that are continually added to and modified as your philosophy and practice evolve. There are many online guides on how to create a teaching portfolio as well as exemplars. What is important to understand before starting a teaching portfolio is how you want to utilize it. If it is being started and maintained as a location to house materials for award applications or job interviews, then the content within it will be considerably different from a teaching portfolio to support professional growth and development. A few things are constant in a teaching portfolio regardless of the purpose:

  • a personal philosophy of teaching (your beliefs about teaching and learning, how those beliefs temper what you do in the classroom and your course design…)

  • documentation of teaching (syllabi, assignments/activities of note…)

  • reflections on your teaching practice (specific and general)

  • artifacts that illustrate strengths and weaknesses with reflective comments

The most common place to begin this process is by writing out a personal philosophy of teaching that outlines your core beliefs about teaching. From this, you will start to examine how these core beliefs shape your approach to working with students and the methods that you use to engage your students. We have prepared a handout to help you get started with the process of writing a Teaching Philosophy Statement:

teaching-philosophy-drafting-checklist.pdf

Some good resources to help get started can be found here:

References: